Muadib's Dragoon Solo Guide
This is a work-in-progress guide. Unfortunately, I don't have the time for group play. But it does give me the opportunity to work on my soloing. Below are the results of my research and experience. Although outdate, a couple guides already written have good information: Dragoon Solo Guide by Urielnosushi, Dragoon: Solo/Duo Guide by Maevedarkphoenix, and Dragoon Equipment Guide. This guide is meant to close the gap between information and application. Subjobs All jobs not listed are left off intentionally. White Mage Best for utility. Teleports help save time and could be used to escape from sticky situations. Sneak/Invisible to avoid aggro. Access to Protect/Shell/Reraise outside of Fields of Valor. Haste. Healing Breath Trigger: Dia Healing Breath Recast: 2 seconds Blue Mage Best for optimal damage output and mitigation. Cocoon provides greater defense than protect, you can arrange for the Defense Bonus job trait at level 80, AND Fields of Valor(Protect) will stack on top of them. Refueling for haste. Set spells to maximize vitality and strength. Healing Breath Trigger: Foot Kick Example Blue Spell Set (99DRB/49BLU) 14 spells and 30 points: * Lvl01: Sandspin - vit+1 (2 points) * Lvl01: Foot Kick - For Healing Breath Trigger (2 points) * Lvl08: Cocoon - For greater defense and vit+3 (1 point) * Lvl12: Head Butt - Stun (3 points) * Lvl18: Bludgeon - str+1 (2 points) * Lvl18: Blastbomb - str+1 (2 points) * Lvl28: Bomb Toss - str+2 (3 points) * Lvl30: Grand Slam - For Defense Bonus (2 points) * Lvl38: Uppercut - str+2 (3 points) * Lvl40: Terror Touch - For Defense Bonus (3 points) * Lvl46: Magnetite Cloud - vit+2 (3 points) * Lvl48: Refueling - Haste (4 points) Totals: * str+6 * vit+6 * Job trait: Defense Bonus Red Mage Great for survivability. Refresh will keep your mp pool high when you need to heal frequently. Phalanx is also beneficial for damage mitigation. Healing Breath trigger: Poison Melee Subjobs Don't bother with any of these below level 90. After level 90 jobs like Warrior and Samurai will really shine for soloing low-level easy prey mobs for XP/merits. At level 90 you get Restoring Breath which will cure you for the same amount as if you subbed a mage every minute. This will typically be more than enough curing than you need. You don't need capped Evasion/Parry, but skilling them up will make things easier. For example, as DRG/SAM I was able to solo Page 2 in Kuftal Tunnel for crabs and haunts using Hasso with no downtime. A bit of a trick to maximize your XP is to fight them 2 or 3 at a time, line them up, and use Sonic Thrust. I got about 75K XP in an hour. Ninja Ninja provides survivability via two utsusemi spells. Would be good to do testing as blink soloer in certain situations, like Limbus. With Restoring Breath every minute that may be enough to solo tougher mobs/NMs. Should test whether an Evasion/Parry build would be effective here given Dragoon's B rating. Dancer Need to test this. This sub should make dragoon solo similar to other melees soloing with this sub. Wyven will adopt an offensive stance. I would think that a mage sub would allow for better DoT because of more frequent use of weaponskills and more survivability and utility than this sub. Also, Dragoon doesn't benefit from duel-wield. Understanding Healing Breath An existing Healing Breath page already has good information. When a spell-casting job is used as sub then the wyvern adopts a defensive stance and heals the dragoon when a spell is cast. Healing Breath has 2 phases that can be dealt with separately, the trigger and the heal. * Phase1 (Trigger) - The trigger has 2 conditions. HP must be below a certain threshold and a spell must be cast. The default trigger is 1/3 HP. * Phase2(Heal) - The heal is based solely on Wyvern HP. The goal here is to trigger Healing Breath with the highest HP possible and yield the highest damage healed possible. Separate macros can be used to augment these phases. Reserve 2 macros for Healing Breath and 1 macro to put solo gear back on. * HP+ Gear - First slot goes to Drachen Armet rest to HP+ gear * HB Gear - First slot casts your trigger spell, second slot waits 1 or 2 second(s), third slot goes to Wyrm Armet or Saurian Helm, rest to Wyvern HP+ gear or other gear to enhance the wyvern's breath * Solo Gear Interruptions The spell you cast to trigger healing breath CAN be interupted by a mob's attack. See Spell Interruption Rate for more information. The best way for a Dragoon to minimize interruption is proper timing. Cast the Healing Breath trigger spell as soon as you see the mob's attack animation. There is a latency to cast the spell and it will be cast after that attack. This gives you the maximum amount of time until the next time the mob attacks. Barring special abilities such as Hundred Fists, of course. Deep Breathing Deep Breathing increases the amount of healing by about 60%. If you're confident your HP won't drop too low, then use this whenever its up to be more MP efficient. Otherwise, save it for an emergency. Keep in mind the max damage your target's special attacks can do as well as linking possibility when making this decision. Restoring Breath Restoring Breath will cause your wyvern to cure you without requiring you to cast a spell to trigger it. If you're confident your HP won't drop too low, then use this whenever its up to be more MP efficient. Otherwise, save it for an emergency. Keep in mind the max damage your target's special attacks can do as well as linking possibility when making this decision. Wyvern Tanking Healing Breath Gear : HP Bonus Gear Gear with only a handful of HP+ are left out intentionally. Satvva ring is left out because it is assumed your choice of ring for the COP reward was Rajas, if not then use that at level 30. Check your RSE gear because many of them have high HP+ on them. You have limited macro slots to equip your HP+ gear. Don't expect to get every piece of gear on this list. This is meant to give you options so you can choose which gear you can get based on how much you play and are able to get help. Rings Neck Ear Gloves Waist Feet Legs Body Back Wyvern HP Gear See a full list of gear here: http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Dragoon_Wyvern#Wyvern_HP.2B_Gear. Falconer's hose left off because you get Drachen Brais 2 levels later. Ear Neck Body Gloves Legs Feet Enif Gambieras Back Lance Analysis Follow this Dragoon Equipment Guide for lances up to level 75 with only a couple exceptions. At 70 use colossal lance up to 74. At level 75 choices abound with the Magian lances and other various endgame lances. Currently, it is easiest and cheapest to just use the Auction House Line of lances until you get to the level cap at 99. Then make your choice on what lance to get. It will be a lot easier to satisfy the requirements and save you time in the long run because you'll be higher level and can get them done quicker. It is without dispute that the current polearm hierarcy is: Ryunohige >> Gungnir >> Herja's Fork >> Chauve-Souris >> Rhongomiant. If you can obtain these polearms then do it. Rhongomiant can be especially helpful for soloing with the +20 mod to vitality. Chauve-Souris can be obtained by minimal help with Blobdingnag. However, these cannot be obtained solo. Here are the other choices: Auction House Line These lances can be easily obtained by purchase at the AH at their respective level and are usually relatively inexpensive. Ereptor Lance Strength Line Can be acquired fully solo. Great for quicker kills and more damage on higher difficulty mobs. Flame geodes for the 2nd and 3rd last upgrades can get expensive. Store TP Line Can be acquired fully solo. See the wiki page for Store TP to make a 5-hit build. Physical Damage Line Can be acquired fully solo. DPS comparable to Ereptor Lance. Damage mitigation helps but only needs to be used situationally when fighting mobs with high damage attacks that require the damage mitigation. Rhongomiant At level 75, the trials up until 436 can be soloed. Camlann's Torment has a 50% vitality mod which synergizes with jump/high jump mods and soloing quite nicely. Trial 430 Trial 431 Trial 432 Trial 433 Trial 434 Trial 435 Trial 436 Trial 437 Trial 1400 Trial 1401 Trial 2063 Trial 2467 Trial 2900 Gear Analysis This section isn't an analysis of all the gear available but teaches you how to analyze the gear yourself so that you can judge which pieces to wear. The typical solo gear will be a cross between what a damage dealer wears and what a tank wears. The general idea is to fill your slots with the best damage dealing item possible. For slots where you can't put a good damage dealing item put a damage mitigation item. The line between enough damage dealing and damage mitigation items (this includes food as well) is drawn based on your target. If you find yourself running out of MP often because of too much curing then swap out a damage dealer piece for a damage mitigation piece. Notorious Monsters will often require a lot more damage mitigation than XP mobs as they have higher damaging attacks. But this still is a balancing act because they have higher HP too and trading too much damage dealer gear will lengthen the fight. Longer NM fights give you more of an opportunity to make a mistake (i.e. late on a healing breath and get interrupted). A couple things to note: * With Fields of Valor(Refresh) MP+ gear isn't needed * Accuracy generally won't be a problem In general, follow the Dragoon Equipment Guide for damage dealing items. At level 72 you could opt for the Gavial Mail Set or the Hydra Mail Set. Once you hit level 78 pick up the Perle Hauberk Set. This will last you for a good long time, maybe even up to 99. At end-game your goal should be to obtain a full Lancer's Armor +2 Set. Other endgame options would be: * Dux armor set * Mekira-oto and Mekira Toshugai The items below are special ones to look for that focus on damage mitigation. Head Body Glove The damage dealing items for hands will give much more benefit than any damage mitigation gear Dragoon has access to. Keep a damage dealing item in this slot. Legs Feet Ear Finger For the Chains of Promathia reward it is recommended to get the Rajas Ring over the Sattva Ring because the bonus to damage dealing is better than the bonus to damage mitigation. Sub Back The damage dealing items for back will give much more benefit than any damage mitigation gear Dragoon has access to. Keep a damage dealing item in this slot. Waist Neck After about level 50 the damage dealing items give much better benefit than any damage mitigation gear Dragoon has access to. After that level keep a damage dealing item in this slot. Ammo Lancer Armor Set Lots of good information here: Lancer's Armor Set. From that link you find out all you need about Abyssea. The set items can start to be obtained when you reach level 75, but will be easiest to obtain solo around level 90. Dominion Notes are obtained by doing Dominion Ops. Resistance Credits are obtained by doing Bastion. I need to try these out and get a good feel for how these are done. Supposedly, in addition to the notes and credits each provide xp and cruor. The table below just consolidates all the information about which NMs drop the upgrade item for which gear. You will probably hear people shouting for these NMs in Jeuno. This will help you quickly identify which NM you need. For the +1 Upgrades, in addition to the NM drops you can obtain these by completing Abyssea Quests. However, these quests do not have guaranteed drops of the Lancer seals. But many can be completed solo. The page for the seal lists the quests that potentially reward you with that seal. : Lancer's Plackart This is easy to get solo at level 90. Go to Abyssea - Grauberg to Cornellia's Camp at G-12. talk to the Dominion Sergeant and partake in Dominion Op #5. You will have to do this one 8 times to get enough Dominion Notes. This will have you fighting 5x Peutrid Puks between I-8 and I-9. This will get you 2k xp per quest, 400 cruor, and 200 Dominion Notes. The Puks are Decent Challenge at level 90 which means you will get skillups on them. The intimidation rate is pretty good, there probably isn't a better way to get your Empyrean Body. You can also do Dominion Op #9 to fight the Peake Pugils. You won't get the 10% intimidation on them, but they're also much closer than the puks. Same rewards. Where to Solo and Soloing Tactics Dragoon Solo Guide by Urielnosushi has a good breakdown of solo camps up to 75, but is a little out-dated. With the advent of Fields of Valor and Grounds of Valor, soloing has never been easier. Make sure you use the Field Manual to the fullest for the fastest experience with Refresh and Dried Meat. Grab Protect if you're not a mage who can cast it. Field support is "Purchased" by spending "Tabs" which are the point system for FOV. You get tabs by completing Training. Be sure to get individual training on whatever your targets are. It usually asks you to kill one or two types of mobs, but the rewards in gil/xp/tabs are well wortht he extra effort. At level 50 you get Super Jump. When you use this ability, the mob you are currently attacking will automatically have hate on your wyvern. This will give you time to use a Scroll of Instant Warp. If you have links, it will allow you to try and cast your Healing Breath trigger with one fewer mob to interrupt you. The below recomendations are to get pages for Easy Prey mobs. However, these won't get you skillups to cap your skills. To fight mobs that will get you skillups I recommend reading through this article Skill Ups: A Guide by Kyrial. You can use it to figure out what mobs to fight to get the most effective skill ups. You may want to separate XP/Merit solo sessions with skillup sessions to make most effective use of your time. Need to try: Campaign and Bastion. Recommended places for XP/Merit soloing: * Besieged - This provides a good amount of XP for the small time invested in it. * Fields of Valor Areas - Good XP while hunting EP * Grounds of Valor Areas - Best solo XP for your time while hunting EP Not recommended for XP/Merit soloing: * Dominion Ops - while it does yeild XP, you can get it better elsewhere * Aht Urhgan Areas - Only XP is from monsters, not worth the time